SUNLAND : Hearing on Golf Course Postponed

The Los Angeles City Planning Commission has rescheduled to Oct. 22 a hearing on a controversial proposal to build a private 18-hole golf club in the environmentally sensitive Big Tujunga Wash.

The hearing was originally set for Oct. 8. Commission Secretary Ramona Haro said the commissioners also are considering holding the hearing at the Lake View Terrace Recreation Center, near Sunland, where the golf project is planned. Usually the commission holds San Fernando Valley hearings at the Van Nuys Woman’s Club.

A city planning official held a hearing at the Lake View Terrace center on Aug. 31 that was attended by about 150 people who were sharply divided over the golf course project.

Proponents, including business leaders, said the developer--Cosmo World Inc., owned by Japanese businessman Minoru Isutani--will provide improvements that will protect local homeowners from flooding and that the club will clear the wash of trash and transients and provide job opportunities.

But environmentalists and some homeowners contend the project would ruin an area that is officially identified as an “ecologically important area” on the city’s own master plan and is home to at least one endangered species of wildflower.